Coursework requirements in teacher training programmes

The disputation will be held digitally, because of the Corona covid-19-situation. Spectators may follow the disputation digitally – link is available below. The disputation will be held in Norwegian.

Christine Watne Kristiansen of the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of Agder has submitted her thesis entitled: «Arbeidskrav i lærerutdanninger. En studie av muntlige arbeidskrav som didaktisk vurderingspraksis» and will defend the thesis for the PhD-degree Friday 18 December 2020. 

She has followed the PhD-programme at the Faculty of Humanities and Education, with spesialisation in Pedagogy.

Summary of the thesis by Christine Watne Kristiansen:

Coursework requirements in teacher training programmes

Coursework requirements are various assignments or tests that students must pass to be allowed to sit examinations in the course.

Increased attention

Such requirements have been given increased attention in higher education programmes, especially following the Quality Reform of 2001 and the Qualifications Framework for Higher Education of 2011.

The thesis examines the didactical assessment practice of oral coursework assignments in Norwegian teacher education and explores what may have led to the emergence of this assessment practice.

Dissonant assessment practice

(Dissonant: lacking harmony and clashing, cf. dissonance)

The assessment of mandatory coursework takes place in the learning environment, where the teacher and the students are involved.

The teacher education in Norway with its inherent values ​and traditions ​has not focused on  assessment.

Based on the model ‘the Assessment Dimension in Teaching’, it emerges that there is little agreement between what happens in the planning and implementation of coursework assignments. The requirement of oral coursework can thus be understood as dissonant.

Tension between trends and traditions, and the reforms’ assessment intentions

The study shows that there are two factors in particular that may have contributed to the occurrence of a dissonant assessment practice.

• The first is the relationship between the teacher educators' purpose of assessment, which reflects assessment trends, and the teacher education culture, which does not have strong traditions for assessment.

• Secondly, three different reforms may have contributed: the Quality Reform, the Knowledge Promotion Reform and the National Qualifications Framework for Higher Education.

These reforms define different purposes of assessment, and the principles for how assessment is to be carried out are different. This makes it challenging for teacher educators to plan and implement mandatory coursework assignments.